Paneb lowered himself to the floor at Huy’s knee and began to prepare his palette, the small sound of the burnisher against his papyrus faint but discernible in the quiet air. The room was empty but for Userhet, who glided past them to take up his station just out of earshot against one of the walls. Slowly Huy inhaled the faint, spicy aroma of the perfume Tiye still wore, a distinctive blend of cardamom and myrrh that enveloped her and remained hanging, an invisible cloud, wherever she had been. The room was empty and still but for an occasional gust of the hot night wind out of the north, coursing through the low, unshuttered window. It was the middle of Mesore. Throughout the country, the last of the harvest was being hurriedly reaped, grain scythed, fruit pulled from tree or vine, honeycomb lifted, oozing golden and sweet, from the hive. Here in Weset the heat was unrelenting. Dust pervaded every corner of the city. The fields straggling along the river’s eastern bank were already fissured by deep cracks.
